PHILOSOPHY

Big Honkin’ Ideas (BHI), is a 21-year-old, full-service creative agency headquartered in Los Angeles. The Agency’s principals offer more than 60 years combined experience in communications, marketing, strategic planning and branding. Our business card says: “Everything You Want In An Agency. Except The Agency” — a proposal that’s been especially attractive to clients who’ve had their fill of prima donnas, politics, any process but the thought process, and paying too much. We vote early and often for fresh thinking, laser strategies, sharp creative, rapid response, good chemistry, grade cards and fun.

A HISTORY OF SUCCESS

JEFFERSON NATIONAL
Zero - $4 billion in assets
under management FROM BHI branding

0

Los angeles auto show
13% increase in attendance
at 2013 show

TESTIMONIALS

Big Honkin’ Ideas has designed UCLA Anderson’s fulltime MBA recruitment and admissions brochures for six years running. Their most recent design work was so striking it became inspiration for our brand's esthetic. BHI also produced brochures for our other MBA programs including the Executive MBA and Fully-Employed MBA. They work in all phases of communication, which brings broad and deep perspectives to the table. Quite a windfall.

Big Honkin’ Ideas has two things that mesh perfectly with the LA Auto Show -- aside from their creative firepower. They have fun doing the work. And they can work with their hair on fire. Which you get a lot of with an enterprise as challenging as the LA Auto Show. BHI is a clearly a huge part of our success.

BHI has been our Agency since Day One, 2006 when JeffNat launched the financial industry’s first flat-fee Variable Annuity. We started with zero assets under management. Today we top $3b. BHI developed our strategic positioning, created our advertising, logo and first website -- which received over 30 national and international awards for ease of use, writing and design. In 2010, JeffNat was named Financial Services Company of the Year. BHI, good folks to have in your corner.

2014 is a year of epic change in the automotive environment. We wanted to capture that Next Gen excitement in a new logo -- but still identify the Auto Show as an LA icon. Big Honkin’ Ideas took the assignment and ran with it. We love what they did. And we’ve gotten miles and miles out of it already.

I want to personally thank you for the years of excellent service Big Honkin’ Ideas has given Telebank. The Agency has been instrumental in our success. The national advertising campaigns you created and implemented have taken us from a small branchless bank to an internationally recognized leader in Internet banking. BHI has achieved this while maintaining strong cost control. You have been invaluable to us.

One of the early decisions I made at the LA Auto Show was hiring Big Honkin’ Ideas Advertising. Their business card says, “Everything you want in an agency, except the agency.” And it’s true. These are fun guys, big thinkers and serious worker bees. No prima donnas, no overpricing. Just great strategic work and fresh, effective creative. I’d rehire them -- or recommend them in a minute.

TEAM

BHI is made up exclusively of expatriates from the land of Same-o, Same-o Communications — senior level talent, creative teams, management gurus, strategic thinkers, online wizards and social media specialists.

Larre JohnsonPartner, Creative Director

Larre Johnson is partner/creative director and the senior writer in residence. Before co-founding BHI, Larre was senior writer on brands that include Apple, Alaska Airlines, California’s ground-breaking Anti-Tobacco Campaign, the Partnership for a Drug-Free America and JBL and Harman/Kardon. He has won virtually every major creative award for consumer advertising, and dozens of performance-based awards for online excellence.

Karl KristkeitzPartner, Creative Director

Karl Kristkeitz is partner/creative director and senior art director. Karl has personally developed brand systems for all of BHI’s principal clients from TeleBank to Jefferson National, from Capital Management Group (CMG) to the LA Auto Show and Connected Car Expo. His design portfolio for JeffNat’s corporate identity, advertising, collateral and web development has won more than 30 design and effectiveness awards. In 2010 he won a dozen national and international awards for excellence in financial services website design.

Justin EdelsonWeb Director

Justin was born digital. He wrote his first program at age 13 and has spent 8 years in web design. Justin is a take-charge guy. He served two years in the Israeli infantry, where he rose to the rank of sergeant. He lives on his boat in Marina del Rey where he spends as many of his off-work hours as possible with another true love, SCUBA diving.